Chapter 11
LUCY
Eddie and I moved in together about a month after our trip to Lake Tahoe.
I was extremely confident I’d passed the bar. My parents liked the boyfriend I’d moved in with. It seemed like an important part of my life.
And then things ratcheted up even more.
Eddie proposed three months later.
We went on a sunset boat tour where they served us drinks and food. Just as the sun was setting, he took me to the edge of the boat, and we gazed upon the gorgeous Los Angeles sunset.
Before I knew it, he was getting down on one knee. I could hear some cheers and hollers from the other people on the boat.
Eddie took out the ring, and said, “Will you marry me?”
I joyfully said yes.
He stood, and we kissed. As we walked back toward the center of the boat, we got a standing ovation.
It was very romantic, and I was as happy as I’d ever been.
In the days and weeks that followed, after the initial euphoria had died down, I started wondering if maybe we weren’t moving just a tad too fast.
Eddie tried to allay my fears. At the time, he was thirty-four, and I was twenty-nine, and he said that if we dated for two or three more years and then had an eighteen-month engagement, we’d basically be middle-aged by the time we married.
I laughed, because we obviously weren’t going to be that old. But I did get his point.
Eddie’s favorite saying was “Life is an adventure,” and he preferred life when it was moving fast. I preferred a more slow-moving style.
We really were opposites in so many ways.
I’d known that from the start, but everything had moved so fast that I’d never really had time to sit down and consider whether we’d make a good long-term couple.
I was just too busy enjoying each day with him.
And he was exciting. There were no boring days with Eddie.
Plus, my parents and most of my friends all loved Eddie, too. Everyone except one. Nia Clemons. Who also happened to be my best friend since the second grade.
She’d called me one day about a month after Eddie and I had moved in together, and told me that she thought Eddie was a hoodwinker—that’s the word she used—and he wasn’t to be trusted. I told Nia I loved her, but that she was wrong. I remember thinking, How could our whole family be wrong?
Eddie continued to sell me on the idea of a quick marriage, which really wasn’t necessary. I mean, I’d already said yes.
“Wouldn’t you rather be a young mother?” he’d ask. “I want to be a youngish father. I don’t want to be seventy at our child’s high school graduation.”
He kept going back to the same logic, which got old. And when I told him that, he’d say, “But not as old as us.”
And I’d laugh.
The truth was, I desperately wanted kids, so I started coming back around on the quick engagement.
And then I found out I’d passed the bar.
I was a freaking lawyer!
I was so proud of myself.
Eddie threw a huge party—I’d expect nothing less from a party planner—and I had the time of my life, drinking and dancing the night away.
While I continued to have a few reservations about our wedding, my family and friends had zero—besides Nia.
They loved Eddie, and I can’t blame them. He was the life of the party. He made people feel welcome. He was handsome and charismatic. What wasn’t to love?
And as a boyfriend, he was seemingly perfect as well. He was attentive, a good lover, and protective. Anything a girlfriend or fiancée could ask for.
So why did I have this underlying anxiety?
There was nothing I could put my finger on. There was just a feeling that something was off. And yet, Eddie had never done anything that I could hang my hat on. I started thinking maybe I was the problem, and that no one could meet my absurdly high standards.
In the past, I’d worried that boyfriends might want to be with me because of my parents’ wealth, but Eddie didn’t seem concerned about that. He rarely brought up money, and with his job and my soon-to-be impending job offer, money wasn’t going to be a problem for us.
No, we wouldn’t be millionaires, but we’d get along just fine.
And sure, I’d inherit a lot of money down the line, but my parents were still in excellent health and in their sixties.
If they died in their eighties, then shit, Eddie would have been with me for at least twenty years.
He’d deserve his share if we’d been together that long. That’s kind of how I felt about it.
Plus, negotiating a prenup regarding my parents’ wealth would set the marriage off on an uneven start. That’s the last thing I wanted.
So we didn’t go that route.
If I dropped a million dollars in Eddie’s lap, I’m not sure his life would have changed one bit.
At least, that’s how I felt at the time.
Darn, I was so na?ve.